Joe’s Biscotti Recipe

This post is a plug for a wonderful project my dear friend Amanda is working on as part of the Brooklyn Utopias exhibition, opening tomorrow night at The Brooklyn Historical Society. It features the recipe for her father’s biscotti, the results of which I have had, and are legendary:

Joe’s Biscotti Recipe is offered as an active and dispersed monument to my father. Recipe cards with my father’s prized biscotti recipe will be available at the exhibition. He took great pride in cooking for his friends and family. It connected him to his Italian heritage and allowed him to express his love for those around him. This August 2009 marks the five year anniversary of my father’s passing.

In addition to being an offering, I would like Joe’s Biscotti Recipe to also act as a catalyst for the reciprocal exchange of meaningful recipes. If you have a recipe that connects you to people and/or places that are no longer with you physically, I’d love to host it on my site. I’ll make sure the biscotti recipe is available there as soon as the exhibition opens on October 2nd.

As the online collection of recipes grows, the site will serve to give form to the recipes and people that connect us to our social histories. Keeping these recipes and cultures alive today tactically ensures that they will be a part of our futures.

Send your recipes, stories, photos, and scans and let me know if it is okay to post them: acurrerib@gmail.com. Visit the exhibition for actual recipe cards.

A print version of the online cookbook will be produced in January 2010 with the closing of the exhibition. All contributors will receive a copy.

I hope you’ll try the recipe on the project’s website (http://www.joesbiscottirecipe.blogspot.com/), and take the time to contribute something of your own. Amanda is an amazing, inspiring cook, something she clearly learned from her dad. She is also a rad artist, and it will be great to see how this cookbook takes shape.